Female Soldiers More Likely To Be Raped Than Killed

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That is to say, raped by fellow soldiers than killed by enemy fire.

 

Flack jackets, combat boots, RAID helmets...ya know they're just asking for it. /snark

This is doesn't seem to be anything new, sadly. I love our military, but they're not all angels. If it isn't this it's tossing puppies off of cliffs or hooking people's genitals up to car batteries. These pricks ruin the reputation of the 90%+ of the rest of the Army who bust their butts, risk their lives and do good work. It's a shame.

EDIT: 4,000 posts. Sweet Jesus, I'm lame.

 

Well, it is more likely for a soldier to die in a car accident in Iraq than by enemy fire as well so pretty much all the dangers that faces people everywhere are present in Iraq. The risk of getting killed in action isnt by far the greatest danger.

 

The chief reason why I'm against females in the army is rape. However, my concern has normally been rape by enemy soldiers after capture. It's also going to be hard on fellow soldiers of the male sex - sticking a gun to your mate's head so you tell them what they want to know is one thing, raping a woman from your platoon is another. Torture based on sexual exploitation is also much worse than typical beating.

 

Aren't female soldiers in the US army kept away from combat zones to a large extent? My knowledge on this is very limited but I remember reading a few articles saying that they were primarily involved in logistics etc. rather than in active combat. I certainly don't want to take away from the vileness of these incidents but I'm not sure the comparison to casualties is that surprising.

 

This is a very poor excuse for limiting military service from women. First of all I think women are quite able to assess the situation themselves, secondly there are plenty of positions in the military that don't involve engagement in direct combat. The chances of someone operating a tank or better yet flying a bomber plane getting raped are quite minimal. Also as I think we have seen all sorts sexually degrading tortures and abuses are not limited to female victims only.

However I agree that limiting conscription laws from women would be justified, not only for this reason but also because the society does not run on the sick and elderly, the entire population can't be mobilized anyhow. If women however voulenteer for military service I see no reason for limiting it from them, in fact I'd consider such limits highy discriminatory and unjustified.

The military as a highly masculine institution is not a very easy enviorment for most women and I'd say that a woman in the army needs to be quite a lot tougher than your average male soldier.

 

That's a little disingenious joacqin. While it's true that more US soldiers have died because their vehicles have been hit by RPGs or they drove over a landmine or other IED than have been shot and killed, I'd hardly call being hit by an RPG or running over a landmine a "car accident".

There have been over 4,000 US combat casaulties in Iraq since the war began about 5 years ago. There have not been 4,000 soldiers killed in traditional car accidents in Iraq (especially since soldiers don't drive cars in Iraq - they usually go in armored vehicles or Humvees). You couldn't even get to 4,000 if you count the number of soldiers here in the states that have died in car accidents in the last 5 years.

You're basically correct. Women can be in combat areas (heck there are women in Iraq and that whole damn country is pretty much a combat area), but they generally are not on the front lines of combat. There aren't female GIs carrying assault weapons around Iraq, and if by chance one of them gets involved in combat (as in an actual ground battle) it usually is not by design. But other than being a foot soldier, just about any other military position can also be performed by a woman. There are women who fly military aircraft, and women who are officers on nuclear subs.

 

This seems remarkably...well, pulled out of your ass, if you'll forgive the expression. Is this from some quantified study, or just your observation? Also, are you lumping in roadside bombs and RPG attacks with fender benders? I think any veteran would tell that's just absurd, in any warzone - not just Iraq.

 

Funny, I was kind of thinking the exact same thing about this entire thread

 

Actually Death Rabbit, it isnt pulled out of my ass but I cant give you proper statistics. I am sure I have seen numbers from several studies that showed that a lot more soldiers died in accidents of various kinds, the stuff that can happen anywhere, than of actual action. Iirc I even saw some stuff on 60 minutes but I can of course be wrong. The entire point of my thread was that all the dangers that face people back home do not go away just because they enter a warzone with added dangers and that includes rape.

 

Right. On my drive into work today, I narrowly escaped death by dodging in IED on the roadside. Sorry joacqin, but your "explanation" doesn't do much justify or qualify your original statement. Yes, there are dangers everywhere. But there are a lot more of them - especially the deadly ones - in a war zone. Saying you're sure you remember something doesn't do anything to convince me - unless you can somehow prove your ability to recall information is infallible. I still think you're being naive to suggest more US soldiers have died in Iraq due to accidents than combat related deaths.

EDIT: Sorry if you are insulted by the naive comment, but the only other term I could come up with is grossly misinformed about world events, and given other posts I've seen from you, you are clearly not misinformed. So again, sorry.

 

Joacquin, you are mistaken.

 

IMHO it is a difficult, brutal thing to ask a young man to go out and lay his life on the line for his country. The last thing we should do is make it difficult on that young man to do his job. Men are given a whackload of mixed messages with regards to women. Women are the same as men, equal to men, and yet we are to treat them differently lest we be seen as slime. Hold a door for one woman, and you are a despicible, chauvinist fossil of an outdated patriarchal society. FAIL to hold the door for the next woman, and you are an ill mannered lout who clearly does not respect women and their contributions to our great society.

What's my point? A war zone is not the place for the battle of the sexes. I know many will call me sexist but I don't believe women should be on the front lines. This is primarily for the reasons I outlined above, but also to protect them from enemy soldiers and (sadly) from the 10% or so of allied soldiers who disgrace the military (as they were so ably described by Death Rabbit.)

There is still a huge and valid debate on the role of women in some segments of society, and until we have that debate cleared up, we shouldn't place more burdens than are already there on our soldiers. We don't know how we want young men to act on civil society, how on earth can we expect them to behave exactly as we wish on the battlefield when we don't know the answers to the simpler questions?

 

While I agree with most of what you said, this last statement is going a bit too far. While detailed behavior may not be outlined to the last letter, I think we can safely say we don't want soldiers raping people (regardless of whether or not they are wearing the same uniform). Also, as has already been pointed out, females are not right on the front lines, unless you consider all of Iraq to be the front line (and I concede that you could make that argument).

 

Either women need to be able to serve in all parts of the military or they need to be excluded from the military. When I first entered the military, women were not allowed on combatant ships. There were quotas to be met and women were recruited into professions required by all ships, but they could only serve on a small fraction of those ships.

Ultimately, such imbalance caused the men to be on a five year at sea commands, two years at shore commands rotation in most professions. In those same professions, women were serving nearly the opposite (five years shore to two years sea). To make the matter worse, some ships which rarely get underway (repair ships) were considered sea commands for women but shore commands for men (adding insult to injury, the women got additional pay than the men on those commands).

This imbalance in policy caused a lot of animosity. Today we would have the same inequity if the women are staying in the states doing the easy jobs while the men rotate into war zones. The military does not need to take such a giant step backwards.

The military, in spite of very biased policies, has been on the forefront of equal opportunity. They have the most extensive prevention of sexual harrassment and sexual discrimination program in the nation -- but it doesn't always work. Once again, there are policies in place that show favoritism. Some of the 'old guard' are still left and they spread very sexist beliefs (many new personnel come from very sexist backgrounds as well).

The article mentions nearly 41% of women veterans were sexually assaulted -- this is a number I can believe. The military has put a very strict definition of sexual assault in place (and I agree with it). Basically, any unwanted contact is considered sexual assault. Any unwanted contact. Think about a typical frat party and how much unwanted physical contact occurs -- this is the same age group as the majority of the military. Also mentioned is 29% of women veterans were raped -- once again I can believe this as well. Rape, in the military, is any direct contact with genitilia (with basically anything) -- what we considered heavy petting when I was a teenager is rape in the military.

I'm not saying these things to downplay how bad it is for women in the military. I actually support the way the military defines these things. But the average person is not aware of such details and so statistics like this can be a bit deceiving.

Equal opportunity has come a long way in the military. Sexist men (and women) are being forced out. There are excellent programs defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Unfortunately, as DR mentioned, some guys just don't get it. And some guys are simply criminals looking for victims.

I read in the paper and on the internet about physicians raping patients and bosses forcing themselves on their employees. The military isn't that much different than the rest of society.

 

I'm not sure what I feel about that. Displaying names for dead shoulders on the internet, with their name/home town and how they died? It's a bit dodgy to me.

 

Please don't get me wrong -- I think it's safe to say that under any circumstances anywhere rape is unacceptable. I hope I didn't come across in favor of rape in any way, shape or form. I was talking about lesser behaviours -- things like a punch on the shoulder or a playful shove. When you bring the gender issue in, it's a huge problem in these environments. It seems to me to be counterintuitive to say "Here is Barbara, treat her EXACTLY THE SAME as you treat the other members of the platoon. Here's a list of things you do to all the other members of the platoon that you cannot do to Barbara." WTF? I mean, so much for the EXACTLY the same comment.

Put another way, most decent young men are taught and told repeatedly "you don't hit women." I agree with this position. Then you put these guys to training and say that now, it's OK to hit a woman. I know in my case that prohibition was drilled into me quite effectively. Playing the equal rights card in this case is not only inappropriate but a recipe for disaster.

 

Sounds like a nice way of getting them used to the battlefield where they might meet a woman with a gun shooting at them.

I'm sorry LKD but your reasons are not overly convincing. It reeks of trying to protect women of something so horrible that they themselves can't understand it. I think they are quite capable of understanding it and quite capable of living up with it. As for the men, have you actually asked men if they mind working with women? Granted I haven't been in the battlefield but I have served in the military and I did not find the women there a slightest bit disturbing. As I said a woman who steps in the military will have to be somewhat tougher than the average guy doing their military service but those who want to try should be able to do so.

 

My problem lies with the fact that all women are different. What one woman classifies as abuse or assault another sees as being "part of the guys." The problem is as soon as there's even any allegation of wrongdoing they immediately crucify the guy accused. There is no presumption of innocence in cases like this. While one soldier here said there were very rigid policies in the military on this sort of behavior, I still think that if I were a soldier I'd want to be able to focus my mind on surviving, not whether or not the next off hand comment I may make might be twisted into evidence to make me into a sex offender.

I'm sure that women are fully capable of performing combat operations and I never thought for a minute that they're too stupid to do so. What I am saying is that in North America we are constantly told to respect women. Then we are told to treat them specially. Makes for a nightmare for a soldier. I would argue that women in combat operations might make the equality gurus happy but that in reality it makes things harder than they have to be for the grunts of both genders on the ground.

 

Cheers. That was roughly my understanding of it.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with these definitions. Certainly, I would not have any issue with taking action against a person who committed such acts, including dismissing them. But it just seems to me that when the statistics are so out of line with what people would consider reality that people tend to be dismissive of them. And I think it's grossly insensitive to 'real' victims to say that what they suffered was equivalent to people who experienced heavy petting. I'm sure the sentencing would reflect the reality but the offence seems to be the same for the two.

I'm not trying to criticise how the US military responds to such incidents, indeed it seems they should, generally, be applauded for it. I just don't think their reporting of it is ideal. As you say yourself, they can be deceiving to the average person.